There is an increased risk of “unprecedented” winter downpours such as those that caused extensive flooding in 2014, the UK Met Office says.

Their study suggests there’s now a one in three chance of monthly rainfall records being broken in England and Wales in winter.

The estimate reflects natural variability plus changes in the UK climate as a result of global warming.

The BBC has a nice graphic, of the most extreme winter month of recent years for rainfall.

The BBC goes onto say

Their analysis also showed a high risk of record-breaking rainfall in England and Wales in the coming decade.

“We found many unprecedented events in the model data and this comes out as a 7% risk of a monthly record extreme in a given winter in the next few years, that’s just over Southeast England,” Dr Vikki Thompson, the study’s lead author told BBC News.

“Looking at all the regions of England and Wales we found a 34% chance of an extreme event happening in at least one of those regions each year.”

Not only is there a greater risk, but the researchers were also able to estimate that these events could break existing records by up to 30%.

“That is an enormous number, to have a monthly value that’s 30% larger, it’s a bit like what we had in 2014, and as much again,” said Prof Adam Scaife from the Met Office.

The 30% larger is an outlier.

But over what period is the record?

The Met Office website has an extended version of what the BBC reports. But strangely no figures. There is a little video by Dr Vikki Thomson to explain.

She does say only recent data is used, but no definition of what constitutes recent. A clue lies not in the text, but an explanatory graphic.

It is from 35 years of winters, which ties into the BBC’s graphic from 1981. There are nine regions in England and Wales by the Met Office definition. The tenth political region of London is included in the South East. There could be different regions for the modeling. As Ben Pile and Paul Homewood pointed out in the comments to the Cliscep article, elsewhere the Met Office splits England and Wales into six regions. What is amazing is that the Met Office article does not clarify the number of regions, still less show the current records in the thirty-five years of data. There is therefore no possibility of ever verifying the models.

Put this into context. Northern Ireland and Scotland are excluded, which seems a bit arbitrary. If rainfall was random, then the chance of this coming winter setting a new record in a region is nearly 3%. For any one of nine regions, if data rainfall data independent between regions (which it is not) it is nearly a 26% chance. 34% is higher. But consider the many alternatives ways for the climate patterns to become more extreme and variable. After all, with global warming there climate could be thrown into chaos, so more extreme weather should be emerging as a foretaste of much worse to come. Given the many different aspects of weather, there could be hundreds of possible ways climate could get worse. With rainfall, it could be wetter or drier, in either summer or winter. That is four variables, of which the Met Office choose just one. Or could be in any 1, 2, 3… or 12 month period. Then again, climate change could mean more frequent and violent storms, such as that of 1987. Or it could mean more heatwaves. Statistically, heatwaves records could be a number of different ways, such as, say, 5 consecutive days in a month where the peak daily temperature is more than 5C about the long-term monthly average peak temperature.
So why choose rainfall in winter? Maybe it is because in recent years there have been a number of unusually wet winters. It looks like the Met Office, for all the power of their mighty computers, have fallen for a common fallacy.

Texas sharpshooter fallacyis an informal fallacy which is committed when differences in data are ignored, but similarities are stressed. From this reasoning, a false conclusion is inferred. This fallacy is the philosophical/rhetorical application of the multiple comparisons problem (in statistics) and apophenia (in cognitive psychology). It is related to the clustering illusion, which refers to the tendency in human cognition to interpret patterns where none actually exist.The name comes from a joke about a Texan who fires some gunshots at the side of a barn, then paints a target centered on the tightest cluster of hits and claims to be a sharpshooter.

A run of extremely wet winters might be due to random clustering, or it could genuine patterns from natural variation, or it could be a sign of human-caused climate change. An indication of random clustering would be to look at many other the different aspects of weather, to see if there is a recent trend of emerging climate chaos. Living in Britain, I suspect that the recent wet weather is just drawing the target around the tightest clusters. Even then, high winter rainfall in Britain high rainfall this is usually accompanied by slightly milder temperatures than average. Extreme winter cold is usually on cloud-free days. So, if winter rainfall is genuinely getting worse it seems that the whole global warming thing for Britain is predicted to become a bit a damp squib.

So is the theory of catastrophic climate change a conspiracy? According to the strict dictionary definition, it is, in that the people concerned clearly conferred together to do something wrong – namely introduce a consistent bias in the scientific research, and then cover it up.

This was in response to last the David Rose article in the Mail on Sunday, about claims the infamous the Karl et al 2015 breached America’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) own rules on scientific intergrity.

I would counter this claim about conspiracy in respect of temperature records, even in the strict dictionary definition. Still less does it conform to a conspiracy theory in the sense of some group with a grasp of what they believe to be the real truth, act together to provide an alternative to that truth. or divert attention and resources away from that understanding of that truth. like an internet troll. A clue as to know why this is the case comes from on of the most notorious Climategate emails. Kevin Trenberth to Micheal Mann on Mon, 12 Oct 2009 and copied to most of the leading academics in the “team” (including Thomas R. Karl).

The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate.

It is the first sentence that was commonly quoted, but it is the last part is the most relevant for temperatures anomalies. There is inevitably a number of homogenisation runs to get a single set of anomalies. For example the Reykjavik temperature data was (a) adjusted by the Iceland Met office by standard procedures to allow for known locals biases (b) adjusted for GHCNv2 (the “raw data”) (c) adjusted again in GHCNv3 (d) homogenized by NASA to be included in Gistemp.

There are steps that I have missed. Certainly Gistemp homogenize the data quite frequently for new sets of data. As Paul Matthews notes, adjustments are unstable. Although one data set might on average be pretty much the same as previous ones, there will be quite large anomalies thrown out every time the algorithms are re-run for new data. What is more, due to the nature of the computer algorithms, there is no audit trail, therefore the adjustments are largely unexplainable with reference to the data before, let alone with reference to the original thermometer readings. So how does one know whether the adjustments are reasonable or not, except through a belief in how the results ought to look? In the case of the climatologists like Kevin Trenberth and Thomas R. Karl, variations that show warmer than the previous run will be more readily accepted as correct rather than variations that show cooler. That is, they will find reasons why a particular temperature data set now shows greater higher warming than before. but will reject as outliers results that show less warming than before. It is the same when choosing techniques, or adjusting for biases in the data. This is exacerbated when a number of different bodies with similar belief systems try to seek a consensus of results, like Zeke Hausfather alludes to in his article at the CarbonBrief. Rather than verifying results in the real world, temperature data seeks to conform to the opinions of others with similar beliefs about the world.

The format goes back to the Ladybird Books of my childhood, with text on the left and a nice colour picture on the right. Whilst lacking in figures and references it provides an excellent summary of the current case of climate alarmism and the mitigation policies required to “save the world”. As such it is totally lopsided.
For instance, on page 35 is a drawing of 3 children holding a banner with “1.5 to stay alive”. The central estimate of the climate consensus since the Charney report of 1979 is that a doubling of CO2 levels will lead to 3C of warming. That means a rise from 280 to 400ppm would give 1.54C of warming. With the impact of the rise in other greenhouse gas levels the 2C of warming should already of happened. Either it is somehow hidden, ready to jump out at us unawares, or the the impact of emissions on climate has been exaggerated, so policy is not required.
The other major problem is with policy. The policy proposals are centered around what individuals in the UK can do. That is recycle more, eat less red meat and turn the heat down. There is no recognition that it is global GHG emissions that cause atmospheric GHG levels to rise. If the theory is correct, constraint of global warming means global emissions reductions. That includes the 80%+ of the global population who live in countries exempt from any obligation to constrain emissions. Including all the poorest countries, these countries accounted for all the emissions growth from 1990 to at least 2012.
If people genuinely want to learn about a controversial subject then they need to read different viewpoints. This is as true of climate change as history, economics or philosophy.

A couple of weeks ago there was a big splash about the forthcoming Ladybird Book for adults on Climate Change. (Daily Mail, Guardian, Sun, Telegraph etc.) Given that it was inspired by HRH The Prince of Wales, who wrote the forward, it should sell well. Even better, having just received a copy in a format that harks back to the Ladybird Books I grew up with. That is on each double page words on the left and a high quality coloured picture filling the right hand page. Unlike, the previous adult Ladybird series, which was humorous, this is the first in a series that seeks to educate.

The final paragraph of the forward states:-

I hope this modest attempt to alert a global public to the “wolf at the door” will make some small contribution towards requisite action; action that must be urgently scaled up, and scaled up now.

The question is whether there is enough here to convince the undecided. Is this is founded on real science, then there should be a sufficient level of evidence to show

(a) there is a huge emerging problem with climate.

(b) that the problem is human caused.

(b) that there are a set of potential steps that can be taken to stop constrain this problem.

(c) that the cure is not worse than the disease.

(d) that sufficient numbers will take up the policy to meet the targets.

My approach is is to look at whether there is sufficient evidence to persuade a jury. Is there evidence that would convict humanity of the collective sin of destroying the planet for future generations? And is there evidence that to show that, through humanity collectively working for the common good, catastrophe can be averted and a better future can be bequeathed to those future generations? That presumes that there is sufficient quality of evidence that an impartial Judge would not throw the evidence out as hearsay.

Evidence for an Emerging Problem with Climate.

Page 8 on melting ice and rising sea levels starts with the reduced Arctic sea ice. The only quantifiable estimate of the climate change other than the temperature graph on page 6, in claiming at the end of the 2016 melt season the sea ice levels were two-thirds that of at the end of the end of the twentieth century.

Any jury would hear that there has only been satellite data of sea ice extent since 1979; that this was the end of a period known as the “seaiceyears“; that the maximum winter ice extent in April was likely less in the eighteenth century than today; that ships log books suggest that general sea ice extent was the roughly the same one hundred and fifty years ago as today; and that in the Antarctic average sea ice extent increase has largely offset the Arctic decrease.

The rest about sea levels correctly state both that they have risen; that the reasons for the rise are a combination of warming seas and melting ice caps. It is also correct that flooding occurs in storm surges. But there is no quantification of the rise in sea levels (about 8-12 inches a century), nor of the lack of evidence of the predicted acceleration.

Page 10 on heatwaves, droughts, floods and storms states that they can cause disruption, economic damage and loss of life. there are also recent examples, and speculation about future trends. But no evidence of emerging trends, particularly increasing loss of life. This lack of evidence is because the evidence of the harms of extreme weather appear on the decrease. Indur Goklany has been a rich source of the counter-evidence over many years.

Page 12 begins

Threats to food and water supply, human health and national security, and the risk of humanitarian crises are all potentially increases by climate change.

The rest is just padding out this speculation.

Page 14 is on disappearing wildlife. One quote

The polar bear has come to symbolize the threats posed to wildlife by climate change….

You can probably find many images of starved dead polar bears to back this up. But the truth is that this creatures live by hunting, and as they get older slow down, so are no longer fast enough to catch seals, their main food source. Zoologist Susan Crockford has a blog detailing how polar bear numbers have increased in recent years, and far from being threatened the species is thriving.

The climate change problem is mostly human caused

The book details that emissions of greenhouse gas levels have gone up, and so have the levels of greenhouse gases. The only quantities is for CO2, the major greenhouse gas. (Page 20) There is simple diagram explaining how CO2 emissions impacts on atmospheric CO2 levels, before explaining the major sources of the net increase – fossil fuel emissions and clearing forests. There is no actual testing of the theory against the data. But Page 20 begins

The scientific evidence shows that dominant cause of the rapid warming of the Earth’s climate over the last half century has been the activities of people…

It is extremely likely that more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951 to 2010 was caused by the anthropogenic increase in greenhouse gas concentrations and other anthropogenic forcings together.

The extremely likely phrase is a Bayesian estimate. It is a belief that should be updated on the best available evidence. Lack of evidence, after much searching, suggests the original guess was wrong. Therefore true Bayesians would downgrade their certainties if they cannot refine the estimates over time. But this was written in 2013. Since the Carney Report of 1979 and the previous four IPCC reports of 1990 to 2007, there has been no refinement in the estimate of how much warming will eventually result from a doubling of CO2.

Page 34 go into the benefits of containing warming to 1.5C. Given that the central estimate from the climate community since 1979 has been that a doubling of CO2 will lead to and eventual rise in average temperature of 3C, a rise in CO2 levels from the pre-industrial levels of 280ppm to 400ppm reached in 2015 would give 1.544C of warming. With other greenhouse gases it should be nearer to 2C of warming. Either it is way too late (and the warming is lurking like the Loch Ness monster is the dark and murky depths) or the central estimate is exaggerated. So the picture of three young people holding a banner with 1.5 to stay alive is of the doomed who we can do nothing about, or false alarmism.

Page 36 has a nice graphic adopted from the IPCC Synthesis Report of 2014, showing the liquid dripping through an egg-timer. It shows the estimate that 2000 billion tonnes of CO2 have been emitted so far, 1000 billion tonnes can be emitted before the 2 C of warming is breached. This was from a presentation to summarize the IPCC AR5 Synthesis Report of 2014. Slide 33 of 35.

Problem is that this was the data up to 2011, not five years later to 2016; it was for GHG emissions in billions of tonnes of CO2 equivalents; and the 40 billions tonnes of CO2 emissions should be around 52-55 billion tonnes CO2e GHG emissions. See for instance the EU Commission’s EDGAR figures, estimating 54GtCO2e in 2012 and 51GtCO2e in 2010 (against the IPCCs 49 GtCO2e). So the revised figure is about 750GtCO2e of emissions before this catestrophic figure is breached. The Ladybird book does not have references, to keep things simple, but should at least properly reflect the updated numbers. The IPCC stretched the numbers in 2014 in order to keep the show on the road to such extent that they fall apart on even a cursory examination. The worst part is at the very top of the egg-timer, coloured scarlett is “Coal, oil and gas reserves that cannot be used“. These are spread across the globe. Most notably the biggest reserves are in China, USA, Russia, Canada, Australia, Middle East and Venezuela, with the rest of the World have a substantial share of the rest.

The cure is worse than the disease

For the rest of the book to suggest European solutions like recycling, eating less red meat, turning down the heating to 17C and more organic farming, the authors write about making very marginal differences to emissions in a few countries with a small minority of global emissions. Most of those reserves will not be left in the ground no matter how much the first in line to the Throne gets hot under the collar. The global emissions will keep on increasing from non-policy countries with over 80% of the global population, two-thirds of global emissions and nearly 100% of the world’s poorest people. Below is a breakdown of those countries.

These countries collectively produced 35000 MtCOe in 2012, or 35 GtCO2e. That will increase well into the future short of inventing a safe nuclear reactor the size weight and cost of a washing machine. Now compare to the global emissions pathways to stop the 1.5C or 2C of warming prepared by the UNFCCC for the 2015 Paris talks.

The combined impact of all the vague policy proposals do not stop global emissions from rising. It is the non-policy developing countries that make the real difference between policy proposals and the modelled warming pathways. If those countries do not keep using fossil fuels at increasing rates, then they deprive billions of people of increasing living standards for themselves and their children. Yet this must happen very quickly for the mythical 2C of warming not to be breached. So in the UK we just keep on telling people not to waste so much food, buy organic, ride a bike and put on a jumper.

There is no strong evidence would convict humanity of the collective sin of destroying the planet for future generations. Nor is there evidence that to show that a better future can be bequeathed to those future generations when the policies would destroy the economic future of the vast majority. The book neatly encapsulates how blinkered are the climate alarmists to both the real-world evidence and the wider moral policy perspectives.

Yesterday, the Advertising Standards Authority at long last managed to informally resolve the complaints about a misleading leaflet by Friends of the Earth Trust and Friends of the Earth Ltd. This is no fault of the ASA. Rather FoE tried to defend the indefensible, drawing out the process much like they try to draw out planning inquiries. From the Guardian

“After many attempts by Friends of the Earth to delay this decision, the charity’s admission that all of the claims it made, that we complained about, were false should hopefully put a stop to it misleading the UK public on fracking,” said Francis Egan, chief executive of Cuadrilla. …..

“Friends of the Earth’s repeated falsehoods have been exposed as nothing more than scaremongering designed to frighten the public into giving it money. It is the unacceptable face of the charity sector.”

Friends of the Earth (FOE) must not repeat misleading claims it made in an anti-fracking leaflet, the advertising watchdog has said.

The fundraising flyer claimed fracking chemicals could pollute drinking water and cause cancer and implied the process increases rates of asthma.

The charity “agreed not to repeat the claims,” the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said.

All pretty clear. As the BBC reports that the eco-worriers are not to be told that they are misleading the public.

Donna Hume, a campaigner for the environmental charity, said it would “continue to campaign against fracking” because it was “inherently risky for the environment”.

……..

Ms Hume said Cuadrilla “started this process to distract from the real issues about fracking” and was trying to “shut down opposition”.

“It hasn’t worked though. What’s happened instead is that the ASA has dropped the case without ruling,” she said.

“We continue to campaign against fracking, alongside local people, because the process of exploring for and extracting shale gas is inherently risky for the environment, this is why fracking is banned or put on hold in so many countries.”

Last year fracking company Cuadrilla complained to the Advertising Standards Authority about one of our anti fracking leaflets.

But after more than a year, the complaint has been closed without a ruling.

The scientific evidence that fracking can cause harm to people and the environment keeps stacking up. Friends of the Earth is not alone in pointing out the risks of fracking, to the climate, to public health, of water contamination, and to the natural environment.

But amidst the reports, the public comments by the parties involved and the social media chatter, there’s a risk that the facts become obscured.

So let me be clear. We told Friends of the Earth that based on the evidence we’d seen, claims it made in its anti-fracking leaflet or claims with the same meaning cannot be repeated, and asked for an assurance that they wouldn’t be. Friends of the Earth gave us an assurance to that effect. Unless the evidence changes, that means it mustn’t repeat in ads claims about the effects of fracking on the health of local populations, drinking water or property prices.

Friends of the Earth has said we “dropped the case”. That’s not an accurate reflection of what’s happened. We thoroughly investigated the complaints we received and closed the case on receipt of the above assurance. Because of that, we decided against publishing a formal ruling, but plainly that’s not the same thing as “dropping the case”. Crucially, the claims under the microscope mustn’t reappear in ads, unless the evidence changes. Dropped cases don’t have that outcome.

The ASA, which tries to be impartial and objective, had to take the unusual statement to combat FoE deliberate misinformation. So what is the scientific evidence that FoE claim? This from the false statement that ASA was forced to rebut.

The risks of fracking

In April 2016, a major peer-reviewed study by research institute PSE Healthy Energy was published in academic journal PLOS ONE, which assessed 685 pieces of peer-reviewed scientific literature from around the world over 2009-2015 and found:

I suggest readers actually read what is said. Hundreds of studies cannot identify, beyond reasonable doubt, that there is a significant large risk to human health. If any single study did establish this it would be world news. It is just hearsay, that would be dismissed by a criminal court in the UK. A suggestion is from what the PLOS-ONE Journal does not include in the submission criteria, that is normal in traditional journals – that submissions should have something novel to say about the subject area. As an online journal it does not have to pay its way by subscriptions, as authors usually have to pay a fee of $1495 prior to publication.

But this still leaves the biggest piece of misinformation that FoE harps on about, but was not included in the ruling. Below is the BBC’s two pictures of the leaflet.

It is the the issue of climate change that goes unchallenged. Yet it is the most pernicious and misleading claim of the lot. If fracking goes ahead in the UK it will make not a jot of difference. According to the EU EDGAR data the UK emitted just 1.1% of global GHG emissions in 2012. That proportion is falling principally because emissions are rising in other countries. It will continue to fall as emissions in developing countries rise, as those countries develop. That is China, India, the rest of South East Asia and 50+ African nations. These developing countries, which are exempt from any obligation to constrain emissions under the 1992 Rio Declaration, have 80% of the global population and accounted for over 100% of emissions growth between 1990 and 2012. I have summarized the EDGAR data below.

So who does the FoE speak for when they say “We could trigger catastrophic global temperature increases if we burn shale in addition to other fossil fuels“?

They do not speak for the USA, where shale gas has replaced coal, and where total emissions have reduced as a result, with real pollutants falling. There the bonus has been hundreds of thousands of extra jobs. They do not speak for China where half of the global increase (well 53%) in GHG emissions between 1990 and 2012 occurred. They cannot speak for Britain, as if it triggers massive falls in energy costs like in the USA (and geologically the North of England Bowland shale deposits look to be much deeper than the US deposits, so potentially cheaper to extract) then industry could be attracted back to the UK from countries like China with much higher emissions per unit of output.

Even worse, F0E do not speak for the British people. In promoting renewables, they are encouraging higher energy prices, which have lead to increasing fuel poverty and increased winter deaths among the elderly. On the other hand the claims of climate catastrophism from human emissions look to be far fetched when this century global average temperature rises have stalled, when according to theory they should have increased at an accelerated rate.

Kevin Marshall

Update 7th Jan 11am

Ron Clutz has posted a good summary of the initial ruling, along with pointing to a blog run by retired minister Rev. Michael Roberts, who was one of the two private individuals (along with gas exploration company Cuadrilla) who made the complaint to ASA.

The Rev Roberts has a very detailed post on the 4th January giving extensive background history of FoE’s misinformation campaign against shale gas exploration in the Fylde. There is one link I think they should amend. The post finishes with what I believe to be a true statement.

The first reason is climate change. But rather than relate emissions to catastrophic global warming, they point to the how allowing development of fossil fuels appears in relation to Government commitments made in the Climate Change Act 2008 and the Paris Agreement. FoE presents their unbalanced case in much fuller detail in the mis-named Fracking Facts.

Update 2 7th Jan 2pm

I have rechecked the post Cuadrilla’s leaflet complaint is closed without a ruling, while evidence of fracking risks grows, where Friends of the Earth activist Tony Bosworth makes the grossly misleading statement that ASA closed the case without a ruling. The claim is still there, but no acknowledgement of the undertaking that F0E made to ASA. F0E mislead the public in order to gain donations, and now tries to hide the information from its supporters by misinformation. Below, is a screenshot of the beginning of the article.

You cannot prove a vague theory wrong. If the guess that you make is poorly expressed and the method you have for computing the consequences is a little vague then ….. you see that the theory is good as it can’t be proved wrong. If the process of computing the consequences is indefinite, then with a little skill any experimental result can be made to look like an expected consequence.

It’s self-evident that democratic societies should base their decisions on accurate information. On many issues, however, misinformation can become entrenched in parts of the community, particularly when vested interests are involved. Reducing the influence of misinformation is a difficult and complex challenge.

My previous post looked at the attacks on David Rose for daring to suggest that the rapid fall in global land temperatures at the El Nino event were strong evidence that the record highs in global temperatures were not due to human greenhouse gas emissions. The technique used was to look at long-term linear trends. The main problems with this argument were
(a) according to AGW theory warming rates from CO2 alone should be accelerating and at a higher rate than the estimated linear warming rates from HADCRUT4.
(b) HADCRUT4 shows warming stopped from 2002 to 2014, yet in theory the warming from CO2 should have accelerated.

Now there are at least two ways to view my arguments. First is to look at Feynman’s approach. The climatologists and associated academics attacking journalist David Rose chose to do so from a perspective of a very blurred specification of AGW theory. That is human emissions will cause greenhouse gas levels to rise, which will cause global average temperatures to rise. Global average temperature clearly have risen from all long-term (>40 year) data sets, so theory is confirmed. On a rising trend, with large variations due to natural variability, then any new records will be primarily “human-caused”. But making the theory and data slightly less vague reveals an opposite conclusion. Around the turn of the century the annual percentage increase in CO2 emissions went from 0.4% to 0.5% a year (figure 1), which should have lead to an acceleration in the rate of warming. In reality warming stalled.

The reaction was to come up with a load of ad hoc excuses. Hockey Schtick blog reached 66 separate excuses for the “pause” by November 2014, from the peer-reviewed to a comment in the UK Parliament. This could be because climate is highly complex, with many variables, the presence of each contributing can only be guessed at, let alone the magnitude of each factor and the interrelationships with all factors. So how do you tell which statements are valid information and which are misinformation? I agree with Cook and Lewandowsky that misinformation is pernicious, and difficult to get rid of once it becomes entrenched. So how does one evaluate distinguish between the good information and the bad, misleading or even pernicious?

The Lewandowsky / Cook answer is to follow the consensus of opinion. But what is the consensus of opinion? In climate one variation is to follow a small subset of academics in the area who answer in the affirmative to

1. When compared with pre-1800s levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant?

2. Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?

Problem is that the first question is just reading a graph and the second could be is a belief statement will no precision. Anthropogenic global warming has been a hot topic for over 25 years now. Yet these two very vague empirically-based questions, forming the foundations of the subject, should be able to be formulated more precisely. On the second it is a case of having pretty clear and unambiguous estimates as to the percentage of warming, so far, that is human caused. On that the consensus of leading experts are unable to say whether it is 50% or 200% of the warming so far. (There are meant to be time lags and factors like aerosols that might suppress the warming). This from the 2013 UNIPCC AR5 WG1 SPM section D3:-

It is extremely likely that more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951 to 2010 was caused by the anthropogenic increase in greenhouse gas concentrations and other anthropogenic forcings together.

The IPCC, encapsulating the state-of-the-art knowledge, cannot provide firm evidence in the form of a percentage, or even a fairly broad range even with over 60 years of data to work on.. It is even worse than it appears. The extremely likely phrase is a Bayesian probability statement. Ron Clutz’s simple definition from earlier this year was:-

Here’s the most dumbed-down description: Initial belief plus new evidence = new and improved belief.

For the IPCC claim that their statement was extremely likely, at the fifth attempt, they should be able to show some sort of progress in updating their beliefs to new evidence. That would mean narrowing the estimate of the magnitude of impact of a doubling of CO2 on global average temperatures. As Clive Best documented in a cliscep comment in October, the IPCC reports, from 1990 to 2013 failed to change the estimate range of 1.5°C to 4.5°C. Looking up Climate Sensitivity in Wikipedia we get the origin of the range estimate.

A committee on anthropogenic global warming convened in 1979 by the National Academy of Sciences and chaired by Jule Charney estimated climate sensitivity to be 3 °C, plus or minus 1.5 °C. Only two sets of models were available; one, due to Syukuro Manabe, exhibited a climate sensitivity of 2 °C, the other, due to James E. Hansen, exhibited a climate sensitivity of 4 °C. “According to Manabe, Charney chose 0.5 °C as a not-unreasonable margin of error, subtracted it from Manabe’s number, and added it to Hansen’s. Thus was born the 1.5 °C-to-4.5 °C range of likely climate sensitivity that has appeared in every greenhouse assessment since…“

It is revealing that quote is under the subheading Consensus Estimates. The climate community have collectively failed to update the original beliefs, based on a very rough estimate. The emphasis on referring to consensus beliefs about the world, rather than looking outward for evidence in the real world, I would suggest is the primary reason for this failure. Yet such community-based beliefs completely undermines the integrity of the Bayesian estimates, making its use in statements about climate clear misinformation in Cook and Lewandowsky’s use of the term. What is more, those in the climate community who look primarily to these consensus beliefs rather than the data of the real world will endeavour to dismiss the evidence, or make up ad hoc excuses, or smear those who try to disagree. A caricature of these perspectives with respect to global average temperature anomalies is available in the form of a flickering widget at John Cooks’ skepticalscience website. This purports to show the difference between “realist” consensus and “contrarian” non-consensus views. Figure 2 is a screenshot of the consensus views, interpreting warming as a linear trend. Figure 3 is a screenshot of the non-consensus or contrarian views. They is supposed to interpret warming as a series of short, disconnected, periods of no warming. Over time, each period just happens to be at a higher level than the previous. There are a number of things that this indicates.

(a) The “realist” view is of a linear trend throughout any data series. Yet the period from around 1940 to 1975 has no warming or slight cooling depending on the data set. Therefore any linear trend line derived for a longer period than 1970 to 1975 and ending in 2015 will show a lower rate of warming. This would be consistent the rate of CO2 increasing over time, as shown in figure 1. But for shorten the period, again ending in 2015, and once the period becomes less than 30 years, the warming trend will also decrease. This contracts the theory, unless ad hoc excuses are used, as shown in my previous post using the HADCRUT4 data set.

(b) Those who agree with the consensus are called “Realist”, despite looking inwards towards common beliefs. Those who disagree with warming are labelled “Contrarian”. This is not inaccurate when there is a dogmatic consensus. But it utterly false to lump all those who disagree with the same views, especially when no examples are provided of those who hold such views.

(c) The linear trend appears as a more plausible fit than the series of “contrarian” lines. By implication, those who disagree with the consensus are viewed as as having a distinctly more blinkered and distorted perspective than those who follow the consensus. Yet even using gistemp data set (which is gives greatest support to the consensus views) there is a clear break in the linear trend. The less partisan HADCRUT4 data shows an even greater break.

Those who spot the obvious – that around the turn of the century warming stopped or slowed down, when in theory it should have accelerated – are given a clear choice. They can conform to the scientific consensus, denying the discrepancy between theory and data. Or they can act as scientists, denying the false and empirically empty scientific consensus, receiving the full weight of all the false and career-damaging opprobrium that accompanies it.

Journalist David Rose was attacked for pointing out in a Daily Mail article that the strong El Nino event, that resulted in record temperatures, was reversing rapidly. He claimed record highs may be not down to human emissions. The Climate Feedback attack article claimed that the El Nino event did not affect the long-term human-caused trend. My analysis shows

CO2 levels have been rising at increasing rates since 1950.

In theory this should translate in warming at increasing rates. That is a non-linear warming rate.

HADCRUT4 temperature data shows warming stopped in 2002, only resuming with the El Nino event in 2015 and 2016.

At the central climate sensitivity estimate of doubling of CO2 leads to 3C of global warming, HADCRUT4 was already falling short of theoretical warming in 2000. This is without the impact of other greenhouse gases.

Putting a linear trend lines through the last 35 to 65 years of data will show very little impact of El Nino, but has a very large visual impact on the divergence between theoretical human-caused warming and the temperature data. It reduces the apparent impact of the divergence between theory and data, but does not eliminate it.

Claiming that the large El Nino does not affect long-term linear trends is correct. But a linear trend neither describes warming in theory or in the leading temperature set. To say, as experts in their field, that the long-term warming trend is even principally human-caused needs a lot of circumspection. This is lacking in the attack article.

Introduction

Journalist David Rose recently wrote a couple of articles in the Daily Mail on the plummeting global average temperatures.
The first on 26th November was under the headline

Stunning new data indicates El Nino drove record highs in global temperatures suggesting rise may not be down to man-made emissions

With the summary

• Global average temperatures over land have plummeted by more than 1C • Comes amid mounting evidence run of record temperatures about to end • The fall, revealed by Nasa satellites, has been caused by the end of El Nino

Rose’s second article used the Met Offices’ HADCRUT4 data set, whereas the first used satellite data. Rose was a little more circumspect when he said.

El Nino is not caused by greenhouse gases and has nothing to do with climate change. It is true that the massive 2015-16 El Nino – probably the strongest ever seen – took place against a steady warming trend, most of which scientists believe has been caused by human emissions.

But when El Nino was triggering new records earlier this year, some downplayed its effects. For example, the Met Office said it contributed ‘only a few hundredths of a degree’ to the record heat. The size of the current fall suggests that this minimised its impact.

There was a massive reaction to the first article, as discussed by Jaime Jessop at Cliscep. She particularly noted that earlier in the year there were articles on the dramatically higher temperature record of 2015, such as in a Guardian article in January.There was also a follow-up video conversation between David Rose and Dr David Whitehouse of the GWPF commenting on the reactions. One key feature of the reactions was claiming the contribution to global warming trend of the El Nino effect was just a few hundredths of a degree. I find particularly interesting the Climate Feedback article, as it emphasizes trend over short-run blips. Some examples

Zeke Hausfather, Research Scientist, Berkeley Earth: In reality, 2014, 2015, and 2016 have been the three warmest years on record not just because of a large El Niño, but primarily because of a long-term warming trend driven by human emissions of greenhouse gases.

….Kyle Armour, Assistant Professor, University of Washington: It is well known that global temperature falls after receiving a temporary boost from El Niño. The author cherry-picks the slight cooling at the end of the current El Niño to suggest that the long-term global warming trend has ended. It has not.

…..KEY TAKE-AWAYS 1.Recent record global surface temperatures are primarily the result of the long-term, human-caused warming trend. A smaller boost from El Niño conditions has helped set new records in 2015 and 2016.

…….

2. The article makes its case by relying only on cherry-picked data from specific datasets on short periods.

To understand what was said, I will try to take the broader perspective. That is to see whether the evidence points conclusively to a single long-term warming trend being primarily human caused. This will point to the real reason(or reasons) for downplaying the impact of an extreme El Nino event on record global average temperatures. There are a number of steps in this process.

Firstly to look at the data of rising CO2 levels. Secondly to relate that to predicted global average temperature rise, and then expected warming trends. Thirdly to compare those trends to global data trends using the actual estimates of HADCRUT4, taking note of the consequences of including other greenhouse gases. Fourthly to put the calculated trends in the context of the statements made above.

1. The recent data of rising CO2 levels
CO2 accounts for a significant majority of the alleged warming from increases in greenhouse gas levels. Since 1958 CO2 (when accurate measures started to be taken at Mauna Loa) levels have risen significantly. Whilst I could produce a simple graph either the CO2 level rising from 316 to 401 ppm in 2015, or the year-on-year increases CO2 rising from 0.8ppm in the 1960s to over 2ppm in in the last few years, Figure 1 is more illustrative.
CO2 is not just rising, but the rate of rise has been increasing as well, from 0.25% a year in the 1960s to over 0.50% a year in the current century.

2. Rising CO2 should be causing accelerating temperature rises

The impact of CO2 on temperatures is not linear, but is believed to approximate to a fixed temperature rise for each doubling of CO2 levels. That means if CO2 levels were rising arithmetically, the impact on the rate of warming would fall over time. If CO2 levels were rising by the same percentage amount year-on-year, then the consequential rate of warming would be constant over time. But figure 1 shows that percentage rise in CO2 has increased over the last two-thirds of a century. The best way to evaluate the combination of CO2 increasing at an accelerating rate and a diminishing impact of each unit rise on warming is to crunch some numbers. The central estimate used by the IPCC is that a doubling of CO2 levels will result in an eventual rise of 3C in global average temperatures. Dana1981 at Skepticalscience used a formula that produces a rise of 2.967 for any doubling. After adjusting the formula, plugging the Mauna Loa annual average CO2 levels into values in produces Figure 2.

In computing the data I estimated the level of CO2 in 1949 (based roughly on CO2 estimates from Law Dome ice core data) and then assumed a linear increased through the 1950s. Another assumption was that the full impact of the CO2 rise on temperatures would take place in the year following that rise.

The annual CO2 induced temperature change is highly variable, corresponding to the fluctuations in annual CO2 rise. The 11 year average – placed at the end of the series to give an indication of the lagged impact that CO2 is supposed to have on temperatures – shows the acceleration in the expected rate of CO2-induced warming from the acceleration in rate of increase in CO2 levels. Most critically there is some acceleration in warming around the turn of the century.

I have also included the impact of linear trend (by simply dividing the total CO2 increase in the period by the number of years) along with a steady increase of .396% a year, producing a constant rate of temperature rise.

Figure 3 puts the calculations into the context of the current issue.

This gives the expected temperature linear temperature trends from various start dates up until 2014 and 2016, assuming a one year lag in the impact of changes in CO2 levels on temperatures. These are the same sort of linear trends that the climate experts used in criticizing David Rose. The difference in warming by more two years produces very little difference – about 0.054C of temperature rise, and an increase in trend of less than 0.01 C per decade. More importantly, the rate of temperature rise from CO2 alone should be accelerating.

3. HADCRUT4 warming

How does one compare this to the actual temperature data? A major issue is that there is a very indeterminate lag between the rise in CO2 levels and the rise in average temperature. Another issue is that CO2 is not the only greenhouse gas. More minor greenhouse gases may have different patterns if increases in the last few decades. However, the change the trends of the resultant warming, but only but the impact should be additional to the warming caused by CO2. That is, in the long term, CO2 warming should account for less than the total observed.
There is no need to do actual calculations of trends from the surface temperature data. The Skeptical Science website has a trend calculator, where one can just plug in the values. Figure 4 shows an example of the graph, which shows that the dataset currently ends in an El Nino peak.

The trend results for HADCRUT4 are shown in Figure 5 for periods up to 2014 and 2016 and compared to the CO2 induced warming.

There are a number of things to observe from the trend data.

The most visual difference between the two tables is the first has a pause in global warming after 2002, whilst the second has a warming trend. This is attributable to the impact of El Nino. These experts are also right in that it makes very little difference to the long term trend. If the long term is over 40 years, then it is like adding 0.04C per century that long term trend.

But there is far more within the tables than this observations. Concentrate first on the three “Trend in °C/decade” columns. The first is of the CO2 warming impact from figure 3. For a given end year, the shorter the period the higher is the warming trend. Next to this are Skeptical Science trends for the HADCRUT4 data set. Start Year 1960 has a higher trend than Start Year 1950 and Start Year 1970 has a higher trend than Start Year 1960. But then each later Start Year has a lower trend the previous Start Years. There is one exception. The period 2010 to 2016 has a much higher trend than for any other period – a consequence of the extreme El Nino event. Excluding this there are now over three decades where the actual warming trend has been diverging from the theory.

The third of the “Trend in °C/decade” columns is simply the difference between the HADCRUT4 temperature trend and the expected trend from rising CO2 levels. If a doubling of CO2 levels did produce around 3C of warming, and other greenhouse gases were also contributing to warming then one would expect that CO2 would eventually start explaining less than the observed warming. That is the variance would be positive. But CO2 levels accelerated, actual warming stalled, increasing the negative variance.

4. Putting the claims into context

Compare David Rose

Stunning new data indicates El Nino drove record highs in global temperatures suggesting rise may not be down to man-made emissions

With Climate Feedback KEY TAKE-AWAY

1.Recent record global surface temperatures are primarily the result of the long-term, human-caused warming trend. A smaller boost from El Niño conditions has helped set new records in 2015 and 2016.

The HADCRUT4 temperature data shows that there had been no warming for over a decade, following a warming trend. This is in direct contradiction to theory which would predict that CO2-based warming would be at a higher rate than previously. Given that a record temperatures following this hiatus come as part of a naturally-occurring El Nino event it is fair to say that record highs in global temperatures ….. may not be down to man-made emissions.

The so-called long-term warming trend encompasses both the late twentieth century warming and the twenty-first century hiatus. As the later flatly contradicts theory it is incorrect to describe the long-term warming trend as “human-caused”. There needs to be a more circumspect description, such as the vast majority of academics working in climate-related areas believe that the long-term (last 50+ years) warming is mostly “human-caused”. This would be in line with the first bullet point from the UNIPCC AR5 WG1 SPM section D3:-

It is extremely likely that more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951 to 2010 was caused by the anthropogenic increase in greenhouse gas concentrations and other anthropogenic forcings together.

When the IPCC’s summary opinion, and the actual data are taken into account Zeke Hausfather’s comment that the records “are primarily because of a long-term warming trend driven by human emissions of greenhouse gases” is dogmatic.

Now consider what David Rose said in the second article

El Nino is not caused by greenhouse gases and has nothing to do with climate change. It is true that the massive 2015-16 El Nino – probably the strongest ever seen – took place against a steady warming trend, most of which scientists believe has been caused by human emissions.

Compare this to Kyle Armour’s statement about the first article.

It is well known that global temperature falls after receiving a temporary boost from El Niño. The author cherry-picks the slight cooling at the end of the current El Niño to suggest that the long-term global warming trend has ended. It has not.

This time Rose seems to have responded to the pressure by stating that there is a long-term warming trend, despite the data clearly showing that this is untrue, except in the vaguest sense. There data does not show a single warming trend. Going back to the skeptical science trends we can break down the data from 1950 into four periods.

1950-1976 -0.014 ±0.072 °C/decade (2σ)

1976-2002 0.180 ±0.068 °C/decade (2σ)

2002-2014 -0.014 ±0.166 °C/decade (2σ)

2014-2016 1.889 ±1.882 °C/decade (2σ)

There was warming for about a quarter of a century sandwiched between two periods of no warming. At the end is an uptick. Only very loosely can anyone speak of a long-term warming trend in the data. But basic theory hypotheses a continuous, non-linear, warming trend. Journalists can be excused failing to make the distinctions. As non-experts they will reference opinion that appears sensibly expressed, especially when the alleged experts in the field are united in using such language. But those in academia, who should have a demonstrable understanding of theory and data, should be more circumspect in their statements when speaking as experts in their field. (Kyle Armour’s comment is an extreme example of what happens when academics completely suspend drawing on their expertise.) This is particularly true when there are strong divergences between the theory and the data. The consequence is plain to see. Expert academic opinion tries to bring the real world into line with the theory by authoritative but banal statements about trends.

Dire predictions that the Arctic would be devoid of sea ice by September this year have proven to be unfounded after latest satellite images showed there is far more now than in 2012.
Scientists such as Prof Peter Wadhams, of Cambridge University, and Prof Wieslaw Maslowski, of the Naval Postgraduate School in Moderey, California, have regularly forecast the loss of ice by 2016, which has been widely reported by the BBC and other media outlets.

In June, Michel at Trustyetverify blog traced a number of these false predictions. Michel summarized

The 2016 prediction is now false. Paul Homewood has been looking at Professor Wadhams’ failed prophesies in a series of posts as well.

The Telegraph goes on to quote from three, more moderate, sources. One of them is :-

Andrew Shepherd, professor of earth observation at University College London, said there was now “overwhelming consensus” that the Arctic would be free of ice in the next few decades, but warned earlier predictions were based on poor extrapolation.
“A decade or so ago, climate models often failed to reproduce the decline in Arctic sea ice extent revealed by satellite observations,” he said.
“One upshot of this was that outlier predictions based on extrapolation alone were able to receive wide publicity.
“But climate models have improved considerably since then and they now do a much better job of simulating historical events.
“This means we have greater confidence in their predictive skill, and the overwhelming consensus within the scientific community is that the Arctic Ocean will be effectively free of sea ice in a couple of decades should the present rate of decline continue.”

(emphasis mine)

Professor Shepard is saying that the shorter-term (from a few months to a few years) highly dire predictions have turned out to be false, but improved techniques in modelling enable much more sound predictions over 25-50 years to be made. That would require a development on two dimensions – scale and time. Detecting a samll human-caused change over decades needs far greater skill in differentiating from natural variations on a year-by-year time scale from a dramatic shift. Yet it would appear that at the end of the last century there was a natural upturn following from an unusually cold period in the 1950s to the 1970s, as documented by HH Lamb. This resulted in an extension in the sea ice. Detection of the human influence problem is even worse if the natural reduction in sea ice has worked concurrently with that human influence. However, instead of offering us demonstrated increased technical competency in modelling (as opposed to more elaborate models), Professor Shepard offers us the consensus of belief that the more moderate predictions are reliable.
This is a clear example of degenerating climatology that I outlined in last year. In particular, I proposed that rather than progressive climate science – increasing scientific evidence and more rigorous procedures for tighter hypotheses about clear catastrophic anthropogenic global warming – we have degenerating climatology, which is ever weaker and vaguer evidence for some global warming.
If Professor Wadhams had consistently predicted the lack of summer sea ice for a set time period, then it would be strong confirmation of a potentially catastrophic problem. Climatology would have scored a major success. Even if instead of ice-free summers by now, there had been evidence of clear acceleration in the decline in sea ice extent, then it could have been viewed as some progression. But instead we should accept a consensus of belief that will only be confirmed or refuted decades ahead. The interpretation of success or failure. will then, no doubt, be given to the same consensus who were responsible for the vague predictions in the first place.

In the Part 2 of my look at Ashley Cooper’s photographs of global warming published in The Guardian on June 3rd I concentrate on the single image of a dead, emaciated, polar bear.
The caption reads

A male polar bear that starved to death as a consequence of climate change. Polar bears need sea ice to hunt their main prey, seals. Western fjords of Svalbard which normally freeze in winter, remained ice free all season during the winter of 2012/13, one of the worst on record for sea ice around the island archipelago. This bear headed hundreds of miles north, looking for suitable sea ice to hunt on before it finally collapsed and died.

The US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) has monthly maps of sea ice extent. The Western Fjords were indeed ice free during the winter of 2012/13, even in March 2013 when the sea ice reaches a maximum. In March 2012 Western Fjords were also ice free, along with most of the North Coast was as well. The maps are also available for March of 2011, 2010, 2009 and 2008. It is the earliest available year that seems to have the minimum extent. Screen shots of Svarlbard are shown below.

As the sea ice extent has been diminishing for years, maybe this had impacted on the polar bear population? This is not the case. A survey published late last year, showed that polar bear numbers has increased by 42% between 2004 and 2015 for Svarlbard and neighbouring archipelagos of Franz Josef Land and Novaya Zemlya.

Even more relevantly, studies have shown that the biggest threat to polar bear is not low sea ice levels but unusually thick spring sea ice. This affects the seal population, the main polar bear food source, at the time of year when the polar bears are rebuilding fat after the long winter.
Even if diminishing sea ice is a major cause of some starvation then it may have been a greater cause in the past. There was no satellite data prior to the late 1970s when the sea ice levels started diminishing. The best proxies are the average temperatures. Last year I looked at the two major temperature data sets for Svarlbard, both located on the West Coast where the dead polar bear was found. It would appear that there was a more dramatic rise in temperatures in Svarlbard in the period 1910-1925 than in period since the late 1970s. But in the earlier warming period polar bear numbers were likely decreasing, continuing into later cooling period. Recovery in numbers corresponds to the warming period. These changes have nothing to do with average temperatures or sea ice levels. It is because until recent decades polar bears were being hunted, a practice that has largely stopped.

The starvation of this pictured polar bear may have a more mundane cause. Polar bears are at the top of the food chain, relying on killing fast-moving seals for food. As a polar bear gets older it slows down, due to arthritis and muscles not working as well. As speed and agility are key factors in catching food, along with a bit of luck, starvation might be the most common cause of death in polar bears.

“Here is my more general statement of that principle: The plausibility of your belief depends on the degree to which your belief–and only your belief–explains the evidence for it. The more alternative explanations there are for the evidence, the less plausible your belief is. That, to me, is the essence of Bayes’ theorem.

“Alternative explanations” can encompass many things. Your evidence might be erroneous, skewed by a malfunctioning instrument, faulty analysis, confirmation bias, even fraud. Your evidence might be sound but explicable by many beliefs, or hypotheses, other than yours.

In other words, there’s nothing magical about Bayes’ theorem. It boils down to the truism that your belief is only as valid as its evidence. If you have good evidence, Bayes’ theorem can yield good results. If your evidence is flimsy, Bayes’ theorem won’t be of much use. Garbage in, garbage out.”
With respect to the question of whether global warming is human caused, there is basically a combination of three elements – (i) Human caused (ii) Naturally caused (iii) Random chaotic variation. There may be a number of sub-elements and an infinite number of combinations including some elements counteracting others, such as El Nino events counteracting underlying warming. Evaluation of new evidence is in the context of explanations being arrived at within a community of climatologists with strong shared beliefs that at least 100% of recent warming is due to human GHG emissions. It is that same community who also decide the measurement techniques for assessing the temperature data; the relevant time frames; and the categorization of the new data. With complex decisions the only clear decision criteria is conformity to the existing consensus conclusions. As a result, the original Bayesian estimates become virtually impervious to new perspectives or evidence that contradicts those original estimates.

Those who follow discussions regarding Global Warming and Climate Change have heard from time to time about the Bayes Theorem. And Bayes is quite topical in many aspects of modern society:

Bayesian statistics “are rippling through everything from physics to cancer research, ecology to psychology,” The New York Times reports. Physicists have proposed Bayesian interpretations of quantum mechanics and Bayesian defenses of string and multiverse theories. Philosophers assert that science as a whole can be viewed as a Bayesian process, and that Bayes can distinguish science from pseudoscience more precisely than falsification, the method popularized by Karl Popper.

Named after its inventor, the 18th-century Presbyterian minister Thomas Bayes, Bayes’ theorem is a method for calculating the validity of beliefs (hypotheses, claims, propositions) based on the best available evidence (observations, data, information). Here’s the most dumbed-down description: Initial belief plus new evidence = new and improved belief. (A fuller and…